Hey there, still here in Europe. Capri, Italy to be specific, one extra day due to an Alitalia strike. Happy day for us actually.

So I have a few minutes between rain showers (actually a nice change from the mundane day after beautiful day) so I wanted to continue my blog about advertising motivators.  Last week I talked about Fear, today I want to talk about Exclusivity.

A few days ago I bought a charm here in Capri. The charm had a cutout resembling the shape of the islands that make up Capri, with a diamond that resembled a star. I asked the jeweler if I could get this anywhere else? He told me “No, it is an exclusive partnership with my shop. The maker has charms for other islands but for Capri, it’s me.” As a result, they shopkeeper could charge more than it was probably worth…and he did. Bad for me, good for him!

Dyson, the vacuum manufacturer, does a great job at hyping their 12-year-in-the-making, exclusive and patented way of circulating dirt from your carpet into cylinders at 5 times the force of gravity. Wow. After all, I THOUGHT my carpet was clean but of course clogged bags lose their suction. Now that I see how vacuums should work, I should pay the $449. They even have a separate “pet”vacuum  for $100 more (which I almost succumbed to by the way).  Mr. Dyson thinks things should “just work” and you know what?  The Dyson lives up to its promise.

Brookstone sells Tempur-Pedic® beds. So does everyone else, so how do they create an exclusive offer? They are the ONLY retailer with the exclusive right to sell the Supreme Mattress with 33% more Tempur® Cells per inch,  promising an even better night’s sleep. They hype “Only available at Brookstone.” Bravo Brookstone.

VerticalResponse has a few features that are exclusive. Our email template system, offering more than two hundred templates and millions of color possibilities, is an exclusive feature of our service. This makes it one of the easiest to use tools to create email. Another feature is our direct mail postcard feature. We are the only email service provider to also offer a direct mail component,  making it your one stop shop for online and offline marketing.

Here are a few questions to ask of your own business to find out if you have an exclusivity component:

• Does your online store sell something exclusively that many other retailers can’t get their hands on?
• Does your software have exclusive features that can’t be found in your competitor’s?
• Does your consulting business have someone with specific credentials that other consultancies don’t?
• Does your restaurant have a new wine that’s impossible to get anywhere else?
• Does your spa have a treatment other spas might not have?
• Is your real estate firm representing hard to get properties exclusively?
• Does your winery have ‘tasting room only’ or ‘online-only’ wines not available at retail?

I may not have covered your business but you get the point.  Grab attention by using an exclusive feature if it’s possible. You’d be surprised by what might be obvious to you but not to your customers and prospects.

© 2005 – 2018, Contributing Author. All rights reserved.